


Break the Clock

by Evandar



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Clothed Sex, M/M, Underage Drinking, Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-07
Updated: 2015-07-07
Packaged: 2018-04-08 04:20:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4290621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evandar/pseuds/Evandar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grimmauld Place is slowly killing Sirius, and Harry knows it. He also knows just how to fight it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Break the Clock

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Français available: [Casse la baraque](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5403611) by [Asjaw](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asjaw/pseuds/Asjaw)



> Written for HP Rare Fest 2015, for the prompt: _Harry hates Grimmauld Place as much as Sirius, the oppressive house matches Molly's overbearing mothering and they find quiet comfort in each other._

He goes looking for Sirius after dinner. 

He doesn’t want to sit and play chess or study with Ron and Hermione. His first meal in Order headquarters has left a sour taste in his mouth and a heavy feeling in his stomach that he can’t quite put a name to, but that he thinks might be anger. It’s not the hot flash of fury he gets every time he thinks of Voldemort or Malfoy, or even Dumbledore lately; it’s a quieter thing. More sinister, perhaps, because he has no idea if anger is really the right word.

He finds Sirius in a study on the third floor, nursing a glass of amber liquid while sitting in silence at a huge, mahogany desk. His hair is falling over his face, but Harry can see some of the tension from dinner still lingering in his shoulders.

Unbidden, Uncle Vernon’s voice echoes in his mind. _“How dare you disrespect me in my own house?!”_ Harry grimaces and pushes the door open wider. 

Sirius looks up. “Thought you’d be with your friends,” he says. There’s a rough quality to his voice that Harry doesn’t understand but that sends shivers down his spine, and he steps into the study and closes the door behind him before he can change his mind.

“I’m still kind of angry with them, I think,” he says, and it’s true. Yes, he might have shouted apologies out of them, but the fact remains that they cut him off all summer without company; with barely any contact at all. And while Sirius did similarly, he at least tried to be comforting and sympathetic rather than vague and (especially in Hermione’s case) slightly righteous. “Besides, I missed you too this summer.”

Sirius’ smile almost reaches his eyes. That it falls so visibly short makes Harry’s stomach squirm, and he crosses the carpet on light feet to perch on the edge of the imposing desk. He wants Sirius to be able to smile and mean it.

“Sorry, Harry, but I don’t think I’m going to be very good company tonight.”

“That’s okay,” Harry tells him. He reaches out and steals the glass from Sirius’ fingers. “I don’t think I will be either.”

The first sip burns his mouth and throat and makes his lips tingle. Sirius laughs as he splutters, and takes the glass back. “Not if you take my whiskey away, you won’t be,” he says, and Harry grins behind his raised hand.

It’s not perfect, but it’s better.

…

“What is this place?” he asks.

It’s another day, but it’s the same place and quite possibly the same problems, and he’s sprawled on the desk in front of Sirius, staring up at the elaborate plasterwork on the ceiling. His own glass of whiskey – Sirius relented and gave him his own after he kept stealing his enough times – is held loosely in his left hand, and he keeps having to prop himself up to sip it without choking.

“Order headquarters,” Sirius tells him.

Silence falls again, broken by the antique clock in the corner that doesn’t tick properly. _Tick. Tick. Tick. Ti-tick. Tick. Ti-tick. Tick._ It’s maddening. More maddening is Sirius’ determination to be utterly obstinate.

“It’s yours, though, isn’t it?”

“For what it’s worth.”

 _Tick. Ti-tick._ Breaking the damn thing would almost be as satisfying as banging his head off the desk – something he’s sorely tempted to do as silence falls again.

“Then why are you letting Mrs Weasley take charge?” he asks.

It’s something that’s been bothering him quite a lot. He’s not, by any means, going to argue that the house doesn’t need cleaning; it does. Grimmauld Place is a vile, filthy place with all the ambience of a crypt, and the very air makes his skin crawl. But it’s _Sirius’_ vile, filthy place.

Mrs Weasley is going around every room, throwing out things she considers Dark and dangerous and, again, Harry’s not going to argue in support of the Dark Arts that Sirius’ family very definitely steeped themselves in, but… But the history that Mrs Weasley is throwing into the rubbish bin isn’t her history to throw away. As Dark as the house is, as filthy as it is, the decision of what to do with it and its contents should be Sirius’ alone.

_”How dare you disrespect me in my own house?!”_

Uncle Vernon – Harry hates to admit – has a point.

“Harry-“

“Sirius, this is _your_ house.”

“It’s easier than arguing with her!”

_Tick. Tick. Ti-tick._

“It’s easier than arguing with her,” Sirius says again, and he slumps over the desk with his head in his hands. His every breath sends gusts of air over Harry’s stomach and makes his skin prickle. Harry doesn’t move. He’s got an awful feeling that he might have just pushed Sirius a little bit too far because Sirius isn’t moving either.

“She reminds me of my mother,” Sirius says, so quietly that Harry has to strain to hear it over that infernal clock. “She’s not as…different politics, you know? Mother was Dark as anything and I know Molly isn’t, but they have the same intolerance for anything different from themselves.” He lifts his head just enough to study Harry over the tips of his fingers. “But the last time I was here, I could run away from my mother. I could get out of this fucking _house_.”

Harry sits up. He shifts and turns on the desk so that his legs are on either side of Sirius’ chair. It’s a provocative position, he knows, but he really doesn’t care. The anger and frustration Sirius has now is the most life he’s shown in weeks; he wants to take it and turn it into something good. He wants Sirius to _live_ \- in the best way he possibly _can_. He reaches out and slides his fingers through Sirius’ hair, tugging it so that Sirius is looking him in the eye.

“So you can’t run away,” he says, “that doesn’t mean you can’t destroy this place from the inside. You can’t get your mother’s portrait off the wall? Rip the plaster off – hell, get rid of the wall. Get rid of all the furnishings and the Elf heads and that goddamn, fucking _clock_ and fill the place with Muggle flat-packs. _Do something_ , Sirius. _Please_. And if Mrs Weasley doesn’t like it then just remind her who owns the places; who holds the wards. Something. _Anything._ Bloody Hell, cut your hair and pop to the corner shop for a paper and some cigarettes every once in a while.”

He’s panting by the time he’s finished. Sirius is staring at him like he’s never seen him before, and – suddenly shy – Harry ducks his head. “I want you to rebel, Sirius. I don’t want this place and these people to kill you. I can’t let them.”

_Ti-tick._

He’s knocked back by the force with which Sirius surges forward. He didn’t exactly mean for Sirius to kiss him, but as Sirius’ tongue sweeps into his mouth and his hands press him down onto the hard mahogany, he can’t find anything to object to. He kisses back. He lifts his legs to wrap them around Sirius’ waist so that he can pull him closer; tightens his grip on Sirius’ hair and slides his tongue tentatively over Sirius’ own.

Sirius _growls_.

Harry comes in his trousers ten minutes later, with his godfather grinding hungrily against him. His T-Shirt had been pushed up at some point, and his chest stings from scratches and love-bites. He slumps against the desk, breathless, staring unseeing up at the ceiling. He feels it when Sirius comes against him; feels his godfather’s whole-body shudder right down to his bones. He cards his fingers lazily through Sirius’ hair.

“We can keep the desk,” he says.

…

It gets easier, after that. It’s easier to ignore his anger when, the morning after, he got to see Sirius practising blasting curses – some of them, he suspects, were the kind of magic the Blacks would have been proud of – on the walls and showering Mrs Weasley’s hard work with plaster and fragments of screaming portraits. It’s easier to ignore the churning in his gut and the sense of betrayal his friends left him with when he has quiet moments with Sirius; when he has sex and whiskey, kisses and soft laughter.

It’s damn near the best thing in the world when Sirius lets _him_ smash the clock – it’s topped only by the tentative plans they make to slip away together during the school year. 

It’s not perfect, but there’s a spark in Sirius’ eyes now that gives him hope for _better_.


End file.
